was meant as a punitive expedition, not an invasion. On November 21,
Zhou Enlai announced the details: a 20-kilometre withdrawal by both
India and China on both sides of a November 7, 1959, line of actual
control – much further than anything the Indians had demanded before
- then discussions on an amicable settlement should begin. China would
put this into effect even if India did not respond. On US Ambassador
Galbraith’s advice, Nehru played for time – indirectly telling Zhou
through the good offices of the Sri Lankan prime minister that India would
not move back to the McMahon Line, but refusing to answer the Chinese
call. At talks in Colombo, India avoided an explicit settlement; it was
impossible even now to acknowledge the simple reality that, on the
ground, the Chinese victory had settled the issue. On the Chinese side, a
generous willingness to allow Nehru to save face prevented their forcing
an explicit agreement; but the border issue remains, theoretically,
unresolved, as it was before 1962.
THE FRAYING OF NEHRUVIANISM
The last years of Nehru’s prime ministership were haunted by the ghosts
of the China War. From the very early years of his government, he had
always been a prime minister at war with significant sections of his
government. But now, both within and outside his party, he came under
attack. Nehru was accused of undermining national security; he had been
forced to drop his major adviser on foreign relations, Krishna Menon, and
increasingly he appeared to be on the defensive. The China crisis appeared
to have undermined the very basis of the Nehruvian system. The central
plank of Nehru’s foreign policy, non-alignment, came under attack, and
Nehru himself had, though clandestinely, completely surrendered the
principle. In early 1963, Tibetan guerrillas trained in the United States
were flown into India, not clandestinely as before, but openly to an Indian
Air Force base, where the Indian armed forces welcomed them.^26 By 1964,
Nehru had given free reign to the CIA to use Indian territory in its war
against China in Tibet, and US spy planes were given refuelling rights in
India on their way into Tibetan airspace.
Leading the attack on Nehru from the outside was the Swatantra
Party. But internal opposition within the Congress, always present, also
emerged openly, and the open swing to the right that Nehru had held off
for so long became more evident. The CPI’s leading parliamentarian Hiren
HIGH NEHRUVIANISM AND ITS DECLINE, c. 1955–63 249